CHAPTER FIVE
THE full significance of Quinn’s tense postscript was lost on Rowena for a full twenty seconds. When his meaning did finally hit her, her violet-blue eyes shot open.
‘You think that I’d…?’ Drawing herself up to her full height, she fixed her outraged gaze coldly on the man still kneeling at her feet.
Despite his stance there was nothing remotely submissive about Quinn’s expression. Neither, much to her amazement, did it contain any of the critical condemnation she’d expected to see. Her righteous wrath fizzled away as she recognised the tense apprehension in his unblinking emerald stare.
Apprehension wasn’t something she associated with Quinn. He always gave the impression of being so completely in control of himself and events, but he was undoubtedly stealing himself to hear her reply. What did you expect? she derided herself scornfully. You told the man you were carrying his baby just before you ran off into a blizzard forcing him to risk life and limb to save you. You didn’t have to be very imaginative to figure out these events might have shaken even Quinn’s impregnable self-assurance.
The hypocrisy of her own outraged posture also struck her forcibly—why wouldn’t he think she’d consider the easy option? It was only when she had considered it that she herself had realised that abortion was not an easy option—not for her at least…
She heaved a tiny sigh and shook her head—the gesture was infinitesimal, but it had a dramatic effect on Quinn, who visibly slumped with relief as the tension eased from his lean body. Quinn’s eyes closed. He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and massaged the tightly stretched skin, then exhaled heavily.
His eyes opened.
‘I’m glad.’
This throaty revelation was unnecessary—Rowena had never seen anything that approached the concentrated elation she saw briefly reflected in his gleaming eyes.
Pressing his hands against his well-muscled thighs, he then rose in one smooth, supple motion. Just watching him move made her tummy muscles clench rhythmically. Without speaking, he caught the edges of the towel draped over her shoulders, pulled it up over her head and began to systematically blot the moisture from her hair.
Rowena stood there meekly accepting his ministrations, fighting the ridiculous urge to turn her face into his capacious palm and press her lips against his warm skin, and wondering with the tiny remaining sane portion of her mind why he wasn’t saying anything else—he had to want to.
She broke the silence when she could no longer stand wondering.
‘Don’t get the idea…I mean…this isn’t an unplanned teenage pregnancy…’
His slanted satirical smile didn’t reach his watchful eyes. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘I meant the teenage part,’ she elaborated swiftly, horrified that he might think even for one minute she’d got pregnant deliberately. ‘It’s not like I didn’t know all the options open to me.’ Sure, the sarcastic voice in her head agreed, you were so clued up you didn’t even protect yourself properly. ‘And I did think about it…not having the baby,’ she admitted, a shade of defensiveness creeping into her tone as her heavy lashes lifted off her cheek.
Quinn’s eyes flickered briefly down to hers before he returned his attention to his task.
‘Considering the number of times you’ve lectured me on the rights a woman should have over her own body, this doesn’t come as a massive shock. But you’ve made your decision…’
Rowena’s eyes widened—he was right, it was time to throw the pro and con lists she’d religiously compiled out of the window. She’d have saved a lot of time if she’d just followed her gut instincts from the beginning.
‘That’s the important thing.’
‘It was my decision to make.’ It seemed critical to establish this.
‘Yes.’
Perversely his ready compliance annoyed her. Anyone would think she wanted him to give her an argument, call her a shallow ice-maiden who put her career before everything else. Maybe deep down she thought she deserved condemnation.
‘And I suppose you expect me to believe you’d be displaying this impressive tolerance and understanding if my decision didn’t happen to be the one you wanted me to make?’ Or was she making yet another assumption…? Maybe the thought of fatherhood under these circumstances didn’t please him—maybe he totally hated the idea…? Perhaps he’d like nothing better than to learn she was planning an abortion…? There was a big difference between wanting to share a bed with an independent woman and being lumbered with the responsibilities of fatherhood.
Rowena had heard enough horror stories to know that even when the event was planned a baby could put the most stable relationship under a lot of strain. This didn’t surprise her, but what did was the fact that most of these people reduced to walking zombies by their newborn offspring frequently went on to have another baby and in some cases more than that!
Not that it was reasonable to compare herself and Quinn to these people. By no stretch of the imagination could what they had be termed stable—for that matter it could hardly be termed a relationship!
Quinn’s eyes skimmed her face, acknowledging her cynical, slightly wary expression with a wry grimace. Heaving a sigh, he let the towel slide back down to her shoulders and finally stopped acting as if extracting every last drop of moisture from her hair was all he was thinking about.
‘I could say I’m the very epitome of liberal-minded political correctness…but I’m not an impartial observer here, Rowena. There would have been some…conflict,’ he admitted, choosing his words with obvious care.
‘Meaning you’d have fought me every inch of the way,’ Rowena translated, feeling foolishly relieved to know he wouldn’t prefer her to get rid of the baby.
‘Meaning I’d have done what I had to. I respect the fact it’s your body and therefore the ultimate decision has to be yours, but it’s our baby and I’d have done my utmost—not just because of the baby, but because…’ He stopped mid impassioned speech and surveyed her face with darkened eyes. ‘I don’t think any of us know how we’re going to act in a given situation until we find ourselves there.’
Rowena relaxed a little and nodded. She didn’t resent his truthfulness. Honesty always had been one of Quinn’s most attractive characteristics—if you left out the incredible body, the air of attractive danger and a voice that could soften the most cynical female, deep inside where it mattered.
‘Sometimes,’ she admitted huskily, matching his honesty with some of her own, ‘things seem all right, in theory…’ Her expression grew sombre as she contemplated with trepidation the inevitable long-reaching consequences this decision was going to have on her life and future.
‘Admitting you are wrong isn’t a sign of weakness.’
Her indignation flared—as if he was the expert on admitting he was wrong! ‘What are you doing?’ she gasped as, totally without warning, Quinn swept her up into his arms.
Alarming as it was to find herself cradled in extremely strong masculine arms, when you were five feet ten inches there was some novelty value in being treated as if you weighed nothing. She recalled how far he’d carried her earlier in the blizzard and realised with a tinge of awe that his impressive physique was not just for show. Rowena was just beginning to almost enjoy herself when Quinn spoiled it.
‘You’re really not as light as you look.’ He grunted as he hefted her a little higher into his arms.
Rowena scowled at his hawkish profile as she automatically threw an arm over his shoulder to steady herself. Just because she had never felt the urge to seek shelter in strong male arms, it didn’t mean she relished being reminded she wasn’t one of those petite females who brought out the protective, chivalrous instincts in men. On the other hand, men—the ones she didn’t intimidate—saw her as a challenge, someone to be subdued.
‘Nobody asked you to pick me up,’ she reminded him sourly.
‘It’s quicker this way. We need to speed up the process—you’re not warming up fast enough.’
Rowena had no argument with that—she felt as if she’d never be warm again—it was Quinn’s method of achieving this desirable goal that had her worried. ‘Will you put me down?’
Again with no warning he did as she requested, right onto the centrally situated, oversized sofa, which was laden with cushions and draped with a richly coloured kelim. Quinn impatiently brushed half the cushions onto the floor with his forearm and pushed the rest into a soft pile behind her back as he set her down. He then proceeded to drag the heavy sofa with her on it closer to the fire.
Before she could comment, let alone protest, he pulled a king-sized duvet from the stack of things he’d brought downstairs and with a curt instruction to, ‘Lift your bottom, sweetheart!’ he slid it under her on the sofa, then folded it envelope-style over her.
Still shaking helplessly with cold that seemed to have bitten deep into her bones, she pushed her chin on top of the soft cocoon. ‘Is it just with me you act like some sort of prehistoric caveman? Or don’t you ever consult anybody…?’
She stopped and tried not to stare too obviously as Quinn began to unzip the leather trousers he was still wearing. She tried to be objective about what was revealed by his impromptu striptease, but it wasn’t easy. He really had the very best legs a man could have, she decided, trying to drag her covetous gaze from the athletically bronzed strength of his long lower limbs.
‘I’m sure consultation is a good thing and as a rule I’m all for it,’ he asserted, acting as if he hadn’t heard her loud sceptical snort. ‘But when a problem needs to be resolved without delay I don’t think committee decisions are the most effective way of going about it.’
‘I always had you pegged as one of those despotic types in a previous life,’ she revealed crankily. If he shed his clothes half as fast as he made decisions she didn’t have long before she was in deep trouble. Rowena despised her weakness as the heavy dragging sensation low in her pelvis got increasingly difficult to ignore.
‘A benevolent despot.’
‘There’s no such thing,’ she claimed throatily.
‘Remember when I mentioned the skin-to-skin way of raising body temperature?’
Rowena gulped—as if she could have forgotten. A wave of faintness made her head spin as she contemplated what he appeared to be suggesting.
‘Well, this is a modified version.’ Hand extended, he passed her the fine woollen top he’d been wearing next to his skin.
Rowena tore her gaze from his lean, finely muscled torso and looked at it blankly, her eyes huge in her pale face.
‘It’s warm; put it on,’ he urged.
Warm from his skin, which at the moment was only covered by a pair of designer boxers! Her nipples, perhaps in anticipation of the second-hand warmth on offer, began to tingle and harden into tight, painful buds—heaven knew what they’d do if it was firsthand warmth!
‘It won’t bite.’
Rowena wished she shared his confidence, not to mention his clinical objectivity. If she could have thought of one sensible reason why she shouldn’t lay material still warm from his skin against her own, Rowena would have used it to avoid a gesture of such unavoidable intimacy.
Her fevered mind couldn’t come up with an even semi-sensible reason so, nodding, she took a deep breath and forced her clenched fingers to unlock. Holding the quilt in her teeth, she eased her hand out from beneath the cover and snatched the top from him. Ducking down under the folds, she pulled the top over her head, the soft material chafing against her oversensitised breasts as she eased her arms into the sleeves. He was right—it was still warm with his body heat.
When she emerged her overbright eyes discovered Quinn was pushing his own arms back into one of his outer layers—a black fleece slightly thicker than the one he’d handed her.
‘I wouldn’t have looked.’
Two red circles appeared on her pale cheeks. ‘I prefer not to take any chances.’
He eyed the hostile tilt of her chin and his big shoulders lifted in a surprisingly good-natured shrug. ‘You’re probably right,’ he conceded as he approached the sofa. ‘Now budge over.’
Rowena’s hands came up in a protective gesture across her chest that caused the quilt to slither down to her waist. Hastily she snatched it up again. ‘What? You can’t…you’re not…’
Rowena discovered almost immediately that he could and was!
She closed her eyes and held her body rigid as his long, lean body slid under the cover and lay down beside her. The duvet settled back around them.
‘Phase two…’
‘Oh, no!’ she whimpered under her breath. ‘This really isn’t what I want,’ she added in a firmer tone. She was confident that Quinn wasn’t the sort of man who would cross that particular line even if he thought she was lying through her teeth. If he responds with a corny, You don’t know what you want, I’ll kill him, Rowena decided wrathfully—even if it is true.
Quinn slid onto his back. ‘Lie on top of me.’
‘No way!’ After her extraordinarily submissive behaviour in New York, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that he had got the idea she liked being told what to do in bed—not that this brusque instruction bore any real resemblance to the huskily erotic requests he had made of her that night. Just thinking about the velvet rasp in his voice sent shiver after voluptuous shiver down her rigid, trembling spine.
Quinn looked into her eyes and was worried by the glazed expression he saw there—hopefully nothing more sinister than exhaustion had put it there.
‘God, you’re shaking like a leaf. This is stupid, Rowena.’
‘I’ll warm up in a minute,’ she said, not really believing it by this point.
‘No, you won’t. I’d offer to go on top, but I thought you’d prefer to be in control…’
Rowena couldn’t smile at his joke; she was fast coming round to thinking that any control she had around Quinn could only ever be illusionary, and if he made the slightest move to touch her he’d know it too!
‘Hell, woman, this isn’t some elaborate seduction technique—you’re suffering from mild hypothermia.’ His expression grew grim as he thanked his lucky stars once more they’d found shelter when they had.
‘I am?’
‘Trust me, I’m a doctor…’
‘Not my doctor.’ Her doctor didn’t make house calls wearing a skimpy pair of boxer shorts.
And thank god for that! The friendship barrier had been hard enough to get by without that added complication.
‘And doctors are having their socks sued off by dissatisfied customers every day of the week,’ she reminded him grouchily through chattering teeth.
‘I’m not joking, Rowena, this is the most efficient way of raising your body temperature to a safe level.’
He was relieved to see that his words seemed to have finally convinced her that he wasn’t joking about the urgency of the situation. All—all!—he had to do now was retain the sort of professional objectivity he had boasted he possessed.
She shot him a wary look. ‘How do we do this?’
‘However you like.’ Whichever way it was going to hurt, of that he had no doubt. He’d spent the last couple of months in an almost constant state of arousal, fantasising like a teenager about her, and now she was about to press that much-fantasised-about flesh against his own and the only thing he was allowed to display was clinical objectivity. It didn’t get much more painful than that!
He willed his uncooperative body to relax as Rowena cautiously slid a leg over his hips. Quinn smiled encouragingly and hoped the intense strain he felt didn’t show as she placed a hand beside his shoulder. Nostrils flared, he averted his eyes from the pleasing movement of her breasts swinging free beneath her borrowed top. Miraculously his own body stayed inert as the rest of her celestial body—hell, he loved the long, lean elegant lines of her supple body—followed.
He shook his head and regretfully dispelled the sensual image from his head. He couldn’t afford that indulgence—it was taking all his concentration and will-power to keep his natural bodily responses in check. Silently he began to recite the nerve supply to the entire gastro-intestinal tract. It was a technique he’d not employed for a long time, but it had worked when he was an inexperienced—in every sense of the word—student with a desire to please his first lover!
Rowena tried telling herself she was lying on top of a heat source, not a stunningly virile male in peak condition, but somehow she couldn’t visualise Quinn as a hot-water bottle! She bit down so hard on her lower lip to stop herself moaning out loud as she lay her legs beside the hair-roughened length of his that she drew blood. Every nerve ending in her body was screaming out in awareness! She tried to blank out the scent and texture of his skin and failed abysmally.
Her damp hair tickled his chin and Quinn’s recitation stumbled momentarily as his concentration lapsed. Look on the bright side, mate, he told himself, at least her face is turned away. Schooling his expression into a blank canvas on top of everything else would have been one demand too many.
If he’d needed a reminder that this wasn’t about satisfying his frustrated libido, the shocking chill of her slender body through the thin fabric of the top she wore provided it. Several minutes passed—it felt a lot longer to him—and she still didn’t relax.
‘Comfy?’
Was he joking? ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she responded, trying desperately hard not to do anything that might be construed as provocative—she envied Quinn his apparent ability to switch off. ‘Not hurting you, am I?’
She tensed all over again as something half between a guttural groan and a gasp escaped his lips. ‘What…?’ She would have looked to see what was wrong but his open hand moved to the back of her head, holding it where it was on his shoulder.
‘Just an elbow in the wrong place,’ he explained, adjusting her arm, which was sandwiched between them. ‘You feeling any warmer?’
Rowena had been too busy stressing about the physical contact and her lustful thoughts to register that she was feeling less teeth-jarringly icy. ‘You know, I think I might be,’ she said, her relief showing in her surprised tone.
‘I told you so. Now let’s speed up the process, shall we?’
Rowena hardly had time to begin wondering in some trepidation what he meant when he began to briskly massage her all over in a detached, businesslike manner. It was obvious the last thing on his mind was sex, which made her feel doubly ashamed of her own fixation.
Even though she had thought it impossible, Rowena did eventually relax, and she even began to enjoy the situation as gradually the hard, tight, circular movements of his hands that had made her skin tingle became long, smooth, sweeping motions that moved from shoulder to flank and back. The combination of the delicious warmth and his clever hands had all the coiled tension in her body seeping slowly away.
She lay there a long time enjoying the physical contact—any contact was better than none, as far as her touch-starved body was concerned—before she finally turned her head to look at him.
His eyes were closed, the shadow of his lashes creating a dark shadow across the jutting line of his cheekbones. Greedily she examined the sharp planes and angular hollows of his face. It wasn’t until that moment that she finally accepted just how often during their short period of separation she’d literally ached to look at him.
As if he sensed her scrutiny, Quinn’s dark eyelashes began to lift. Rowena froze and she found herself staring into sensational deep aquamarine eyes. Quinn had frustrating eyes that could turn her bones to water and at the same time shield his thoughts totally from her.
Her tentative smile faded as she received none in return. ‘I’m much warmer.’
‘The thaw seems to have gone further than skin-deep.’ It was impossible to tell from his dry tone if he thought this was a bad or good thing.
‘If you ever want a career change you could make a fortune as a masseur…’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
She hitched herself a little higher so that his fingers, which had been splayed in the small of her back, came to rest on the curve of her firm bottom. She gave a determined little wriggle and sighed. ‘That’s so good, Quinn.’
Quinn’s lean fingers spasmed digging into her firm resilient flesh. His hand lifted clear of her skin.
‘Sorry.’
His hoarse tone gave her the first hint that he might not be as laid-back about the situation as he’d seemed so far. The discovery made Rowena feel slightly less depraved and more than slightly relieved!
She stretched lazily and gave another sexy, sinuous little wriggle that Quinn had no doubt was not accidental, and a pulse beside his mouth began to throb.
Tongue caught between her teeth, she raised herself on one arm and, arching her back, ran a finger casually down his chest. ‘My feet are still cold,’ she complained, running her toes down his calf to illustrate her claim. ‘See…’ The borrowed top, which just about skimmed her hips, hiked up as she brought her knee up. ‘Shall I warm them on you?’ The innocent enquiry was barely out of her mouth when she found herself tipped sideways until they lay shoulder to shoulder.
‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing, Rowena?’ Smouldering eyes locked with hers.
Her back against the sofa, her front against his front, there wasn’t any way Rowena could avoid that accusing glare.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, not pulling off the dumb act at all convincingly. She sighed as her eyes slid from his. ‘I suppose I was being a little…provocative…’ She was suddenly annoyed with herself for feeling so guilty. Wasn’t she a modern woman with needs of her own and as much right as a man to make the first move? She’d read all the articles—hell’s bells! She’d written a lot of them.
‘Is this Rowena being brutally honest?’
No, this is Rowena saying the first stupid thing that comes into her head! Her antagonism faded perceptibly as she encountered the tender expression in his eyes.
‘Is this Quinn rubbing salt in the wound?’ She sighed. ‘I don’t see what’s so bad about being provocative…’
‘Did I say there was anything wrong?’
‘You want an apology? Fine, I’m sorry I came on to you.’
‘You’re sorry,’ he parroted hoarsely. The veil of her lashes lifted once more as she heard the rasp of his incredulous inhalation. ‘I don’t want your apologies, woman, I want you!’
Her stomach flipped over. ‘You do?’ Her body sagged in relief.
His hand cupped her chin. ‘This can’t have come as a shock; I’ve hardly been trying to disguise the fact.’
‘Well, no,’ she admitted, blushing. ‘But that was before you knew…I thought maybe me being pregnant had put you off the…physical side of things, and I’d hate you to think that I was coming on to you because I need a father for the baby,’ she rattled on nervously. ‘Because nothing could be farther from the truth.’
The fingers around her jaw tightened. ‘Need has nothing to do with it, Rowena, you’ve got a father for the baby—me!’
‘You know what I mean,’ she responded, wary of the implacable expression in his eyes.
Oh, he knew what she meant, all right! Perhaps now wasn’t the right moment to make it plain to her that he wasn’t about to be a part-time father, Quinn thought drily.
‘I think I get the general drift…but I’m confused. Why the…provocation, after you’ve been holding me at arm’s length?’
Was he joking? There were many men in this world she could safely snuggle with, but Quinn wasn’t one of them!
She found she had no control over the direction of her blue eyes as they dropped with embarrassing obviousness from his eyes to his firm, sensual mouth and back again. ‘Do we have to analyse this?’ she agonised hoarsely, the whole of her restless body burning up with frustrated desire.
‘I think maybe we do.’ What are you going to do? the voice in his head asked mockingly. Hold out indefinitely? Sure, that’s really likely!
If this was his way of punishing her, it was working! How could she satisfactorily explain the fact that something just felt right. Rowena sighed, and struggled to get her frustration in check. It had reached the point where there seemed little point in prevaricating.
‘The thing is, I’ve been thinking about you…us…well, actually,’ she corrected, her lips quivering into a self-derisive curve, ‘I’ve been trying not to because—’
‘Because your concentration is shot to hell and things like eating are a chore. You laugh at jokes when you haven’t heard them and, worst of all…or is it best…?’ he recited, his gaze fixed and unblinking, his tone unemotional and flat.
His head went back and Rowena watched completely riveted as the muscles in his strong throat worked.
‘The worst thing is when you wake up in the middle of the night, your body aching, and the only person that can take that ache away isn’t there.’ Lifting a crooked arm to cover his eyes, he suddenly rolled away from her onto his back, his broad, powerful chest heaving.
About mid-way through the final impassioned instalment in his narrative, Rowena had begun to nod wonderingly and she continued to do so even when he stopped speaking.
Ambivalent emotions churned in her stomach. The raw, barely restrained hunger she’d seen in Quinn’s face, and discovering they’d been suffering almost identical symptoms, had both frightened and deeply excited her.
‘I didn’t know you felt like that,’ she whispered, raising a hand to the side of his face.
His arm fell away from his eyes. Lips twisted cynically, he scanned her face. ‘You didn’t want to know.’ He caught her wrist and held her fingers there against the day’s growth that cast a dark shadow over his lower jaw.
Rowena wasn’t prepared to take all the blame. ‘I suppose if you hadn’t been so stubborn about us having an affair we’d have already got this out of our systems.’
‘If it makes you feel better to believe that, Rowena, go right ahead and cling onto that belief.’
‘I think maybe the only thing that will make me feel better is feeling you inside me,’ she declared boldly. Her eyes glazed hotly as she thought of Quinn’s mouth on her skin, his fingers stroking her, Quinn sliding hard into her—and her mouth opened to drag air noisily into her oxygen-depleted lungs.
A groan was ripped from his throat before his mouth came crashing down on hers. Fingers hooked into his hair, Rowena opened her mouth, welcoming the hot, probing invasion of his tongue. Frantically she plastered herself against him, revelling in the pain as the hard swell of his arousal ground into her belly.
‘You have no idea,’ he rasped, ‘how often I’ve thought about this…’
Rowena nodded, pressing frantic kisses to the curve of his jaw, his throat, his eyelids. ‘Oh, but I do,’ she cried brokenly. ‘I do!’
His big hands ran down the curve of her spine and, cupping the rounded contours of her bottom, hauled her hard against him. His mouth left hers for a second as he yanked the top over her head. It was closely followed by his own.
His naked flesh touched hers and the fire in her veins exploded, scorching away any residual sanity in its wake. She felt his teeth tug at her lower lip, felt his breath hot and rapid on her cheek as his hands cupped, stroked and squeezed her swollen breasts, catching each engorged pink nipple in turn between his thumb and forefinger and teasing the aching nubs of flesh. Each caress sizzled along her nerve endings, wave after wave of pure sensation that reduced Rowena to a moaning, compliant wreck.
‘You like this…?’
Rowena’s eyelids felt heavy; it was hard to lift them—but the effort was worth it! God, but he was beautiful!
‘I like it.’ Her voice sounded as if it were coming from a long way away. Then more firmly, but still trembling and strange, ‘A lot!’
Breathing heavily, she dragged the quilt down to look at all of him—the breath snagged painfully in her throat. He was incredible, she thought, marvelling hungrily at the perfection of his streamlined body. There wasn’t an ounce of surplus flesh on his spare frame to hide the stupendous muscular development and the boxers he wore were equally inadequate to hide the extent of his arousal.
‘You’ll get cold.’
Rowena laughed huskily. That hardly seemed likely; she was burning up, her veins were filled with fire, her throat ached with emotional need. She reached out and touched his flat belly and felt the immediate satisfactory sharp contraction of his strong muscles as he sucked in his breath in a harsh gasp. He let her hands explore some more until they slid a little too low, then, ignoring her protests, caught them in one of his own.
‘Too much, too soon,’ he explained thickly, pinning both her hands above her head in his capable grasp.
‘I can’t touch you.’
‘But I can touch you.’ An insolent, sexual smile curved his lips as she shuddered hard against him. ‘You’ll like that, won’t you…?’ His green eyes, smouldering as though they were lit by an inner flame, melded with her own.
‘Yes.’ She licked her dry lips as her dilated pupils stayed glued to his dark face—she was his utterly, and the unconditional surrender felt strangely liberating. A restless twist of her hips sent the quilt slithering to the floor.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm,’ he breathed into her mouth.
‘Please,’ she replied simply.
Quinn looked into her smoky eyes, and what he saw took his breath away.
Rowena shivered, but not from cold this time. Quinn’s free hand was on her stomach, and soon his lips were there too, tracing a slow, tingling path across her flesh. She moaned as her insides violently contracted and then did so again and again until she felt she couldn’t breathe. Even with her eyes closed the room was spinning.
He pushed her body down under him and loomed over her. This display of masculine strength she would have scorned in her right mind only heightened her escalating, scalding excitement. Watching the play of emotion over her passion-pale features, he slid his hand under the edge of her stretchy smooth pants and felt the betraying heat and slickness between her legs.
The feral sound of her keening wail made him pull back.
Rowena’s eyes, the dilated pupils almost obliterating the blue, snapped open. ‘Don’t stop!’ she implored in an agonised whisper. ‘Please…!’
Quinn released her hands and pressed a burning kiss to her parted lips. ‘I think you’d be much more comfortable without these…’ He fingered the lacy waistband.
‘I would—I definitely would.’
What Quinn’s actions lacked in finesse as he roughly slid the pants down her long legs he more than made up for in urgency. He parted her legs, need stamped indelibly on his hard-edged features as he savoured the mind-blowingly erotic sight of her sensuous body waiting for him—she was his!
‘Now, Quinn, please!’ Her eyes glowed with a slumberous passion as she parted her legs still wider—it was an invitation that Quinn couldn’t and didn’t resist.
During the first breathless moment of penetration Rowena, overcome by the sheer blissful wonder of her softness being stretched and filled, just clung, her fingers digging into his back, her long legs wrapped around his waist.
As they moved, hot, slick skin on slick skin, her sense of self disappeared. There was no individual Quinn and Rowena; there was just mindless pleasure and the promise of more held tantalisingly out of reach. Each thrust of his body took her deeper and deeper into the maelstrom of sensation; the blood pounded darkly in her head as his erotic whispers became frantic pants.
She felt the climax coming, building strength inside her before the shattering release actually arrived. Pleasure rolled over her like a tidal wave, bathing each individual cell of her body, stretching each individual sinew and fibre to their limitations. Above her she was conscious of Quinn shuddering and he cried out her name over and over until the final hot, pulsing surges of his body stilled.
Their breathing gradually stilled as they lay tangled together. He would have slid from her then, but Rowena, already half asleep, held him tight.
CHAPTER SIX
ROWENA woke to find herself staring up at a canopy. She blinked as the gold fleur-de-lis embroidered on the deep blue pleated silk slid into focus. She sat up, taking the quilt she was wrapped in with her, and realised she was lying in bed—a very large, carved, dark oak four-poster and one that to her certain knowledge she’d never seen before.
It took her several hazy moments to recall the sequence of events that had taken her to the cottage and this bed. She clutched her tousled blonde head and groaned—talk about complicating things!
Quinn, she reasoned, must have carried her upstairs while she’d slept, slept after…! A tide of heat washed over her body, and hastily she fast-forwarded over what had immediately preceded her falling asleep. It wasn’t easy; her thoughts showed a weak tendency to dwell dreamily on her temporary madness.
Gran! Her eyes flew open in alarm and guilt crowded out everything else. While they’d been making love her gran had been fighting for her life. How could I be so shallow…so selfish? she berated herself. Self-disgust churned in her stomach. How long had she slept? It could have been round the clock for all she knew. Her sense of disorientation increased as she looked around wildly for a clock and found none, and the heavy curtains were drawn so it was impossible to gauge the time of day.
Sliding from under the warm covers, Rowena grabbed a light embroidered throw off a small sofa at the foot of the bed to cover her nakedness. Lifting up the tail of the improvised sarong, she then ran over to the window and pushed aside the curtains. She was relieved to see it was still daylight; that relief was tempered by the fact it was still snowing like crazy.
‘I thought I heard you moving around.’
Rowena spun to face the figure who had silently materialised in the room, the chinks of light from the disturbed curtains catching her hair, turning it to a bright silver halo around her fine-boned face.
Quinn was no longer in black leather. He now looked equally virile and desirable in a pair of dark moleskin trousers and a chunky knitted cream sweater he’d obviously appropriated.
The owner of the cottage, it would seem, was a big man also. It was hard not to notice that the outfit fitted Quinn’s broad-shouldered, long-legged frame extremely well—if a little too snugly in the hip area. Rowena swallowed and brought her restless gaze back to his face.
‘You look better,’ he announced, after subjecting her pink-cheeked face to a cool-eyed scrutiny. ‘Did you sleep well?’ he added as his enigmatic eyes continued to scan her wary face as though he expected to see something written on the clear, creamy skin.
Like someone afraid to incriminate herself in an interrogation, Rowena kept her face blank. She nodded awkwardly—after what she’d been imagining his opening comments might be, this innocuous enquiry was actually a relief. She just hoped he kept things simple and didn’t start some deeply embarrassing post-mortem, because if he did she didn’t know how she was going to explain away her wanton behaviour!
‘Too well. What time is it?’ she asked, tightening the loop of fabric gathered loosely over her bosom.
Quinn laid down the tray he carried. ‘Tea time.’ He didn’t appear perturbed or particularly surprised by his less than warm reception. ‘Will you be mother?’ He winced, and straightened up, brushing a stray hank of hair from his eyes. ‘Sorry, no pun intended—’ he began apologetically.
‘For goodness’ sake, I’m pregnant—’ she responded snappily, ungrateful for his display of consideration. Rowena didn’t want consideration, she wanted everything to be the way it had been. Dream on, a cruel voice of realism in her head mocked. ‘I’m not made of china—don’t for heaven’s sake start censoring what you say on my account,’ she told him in exasperated distaste.
‘Right, no special treatment…I’ll make a mental note of that,’ he promised gravely.
Her eyes narrowed as she tried to detect mockery in his solemn face. ‘How long exactly have I been asleep?’
‘I don’t know exactly,’ he mocked, mimicking her crisp tone. ‘If I’d known it was important I’d have made a note.’ Rowena made an impatient sound in the back of her throat. ‘It’s about four-thirty, if that’s any help.’
‘Four-thirty—but that’s—’
‘Halfway between four and five.’
‘Half the day’s gone!’ She gasped, tucking her hair behind her ears in an agitated jerky gesture. ‘How could you let me…?’ she wailed. She bit her lip and tried to tighten her grip on her self-control and the throw wrapped carelessly around her—an accident waiting to happen. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’ She looked wildly around the room. ‘I should be doing…’
‘What?’ One dark brow quirked and Rowena shook her head, struck dumb by her growing sense of impotence.
Her slender shoulder slumped defeatedly. ‘Something,’ she responded in an agonised whisper.
It was hard for Quinn to reconcile the lonely, fragile figure before him with the indelible mental image in his head of that smart-mouthed, feisty lady editor who not only incited respect, lust and insanity in him in about equal measures, but also provided him with a constant, stimulating challenge in a way no other woman had ever done.
He’d always known Rowena had a more vulnerable side; what he hadn’t known was how strong his own protective instincts would be on the occasions she revealed it. This wasn’t about the fact that she was carrying his child, this was about the fact that he loved her—every time he admitted it to himself it got easier.
One arm extended, he took an impetuous step towards her.
It was too much, too soon for Rowena, who knew that his touch suspended all rational mental processes. She took a stumbling backward step that brought her legs in contact with the low, deep window sill.
There was a self-derisive glitter in Quinn’s eyes as his arm fell back to his side. Rowena felt she ought to be pleased by the neutral expression on his normally mobile features when he eventually did speak, but now she found herself wondering about what he was hiding.
‘I know you’re worried sick about your gran and, left to you, you’d prefer to hike across the Grampians than wait the snow out with me, but the fact is your presence at the hospital is in no way essential to her recovery. She has expert medical care and if she does wake up before you arrive she’s surrounded by people who love her…’
‘Wake up?’ Rowena curtly cut in with a frown.
Quinn sighed, mentally cursing his blunder. ‘Just a figure of speech. Do you—?’
She scanned his face. ‘She’s unconscious, isn’t she?’ His veiled eyes dropped tellingly and she gasped. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ Her voice quivered with emotion.
‘She had lapsed into coma when I spoke to Niall before we got on the plane,’ Quinn admitted quietly. ‘He asked me to pass on the information, and I intended to, but you were too upset at the time. I thought I’d wait until later on.’
‘Just how much later on did you have in mind?’ she asked bitterly as she reviewed all the opportunities he’d had.
‘I didn’t think telling you would serve any useful purpose. You were already stressed enough and in my judgement you—’
His judgement! Rowena saw red; her bosom swelled wrathfully—the arrogance of the man, the conceit! All her life she’d been coming up against exactly this sort of patronising sexual stereotyping, the convenient result of which was that men ended up making all the important decisions in life. The way she saw it, masculine concern was very often nothing but another example of male powerplay.
‘And your judgement is the only one that counts, I take it,’ she cut in icily.
Though when he replied Quinn sounded composed, he had no control over the two dark stripes of angry colour that appeared high across his slashing cheekbones. ‘I made a call—’
Rowena’s hands balled into fists as she impatiently brushed a stray tear from her cheek. ‘It wasn’t your call to make,’ she cut him off furiously.
His big shoulders lifted fractionally. ‘And as I was about to say—I’d do the same again,’ he announced, condemning himself even further in her eyes by still not displaying any regret whatsoever for the high-handed way he’d acted in withholding the vital piece of information.
‘How dare you!’ She gasped, her blue eyes flashing. ‘Ignorance is not bliss, it’s just ignorance. The next thing you’ll be expecting is my thanks!’
‘I didn’t do it for your gratitude, Rowena.’
‘No, you did it because I’m some pathetic, weak little girlie who needs to be protected from the nasty truth,’ she sneered. ‘Did it make you feel like the big strong man, keeping me in the dark?’ she asked bitterly.
A flicker of something like anger moved at the back of Quinn’s eyes. ‘I would have told you when I thought the time was right,’ he gritted.
That figured. ‘When you thought…oh, that’s all right, then,’ she trilled nastily.
‘You want the truth, Rowena, great, that’s absolutely fine by me.’ With her back already literally against the wall, this time there was nowhere for her to retreat when he advanced menacingly towards her. ‘For instance, we could stop pretending we both don’t know the real reason you’re prepared to behave with all the native nous of a lemming to get to your grandmother is because you’re torn apart with guilt. Tell me, how many invitations have you refused during the past twelve months?’ he continued inexorably when she shook her head in mute, horrified denial.
The last remaining shreds of colour faded from Rowena’s cheeks.
‘You’re eaten up with remorse every time you think about all the time you didn’t spend with her because your high-powered career was so much more important than visiting with elderly relatives.’
He must think I’m a total bitch, she thought, steeling herself to meet his angrily scornful eyes squarely just as the heat appeared to be fading from them. Considering the fact that she had always known Quinn had a capacity for displaying great ruthlessness when he wanted to, she ought to have known better than to actually request him not to treat her with kid gloves. Quinn also had a capacity for tenderness and compassion, which in her self-righteous indignation she’d condemned him for—it wasn’t really surprising he’d hit back.
‘I think you’ve made your point, Quinn,’ she murmured unhappily.
Quinn had been feeling lousy even before her dignified response. He deeply regretted allowing her to goad him into making such brutal remarks.
‘That was unjustified. I’m—’
‘No, it’s true, I’m selfish and self-centred—’
Quinn shook his head.
‘Not to mention very close to feeling sorry for myself,’ she added with a small, forced laugh.
‘When you’re focused on one thing it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture,’ he told her, laying a tentative hand on her shoulder, his fingers tightening slightly when she didn’t immediately reject his touch. ‘As for people around us, we all of us take them for granted. Why, I’ve lost count of the number of girlfriends who have accused me of always putting them second to my job.’
Rowena wondered wryly whether this timely reminder of his diverse and extensive selection of sexual partners was meant to cheer her up—if so it was a major miscalculation! She had difficulty controlling the nauseous feelings of jealousy his soothing words evoked.
Quinn lifted a strand of lint-fair hair in his fingers and let it fall again. He tucked her chin into the angle of his jaw and hugged her. ‘Loss of consciousness in your grandmother’s condition is not unusual and it doesn’t mean she couldn’t eventually make a full recovery.’
Hands on his forearms, Rowena pulled away from the light embrace. ‘You’re not just saying that?’ she pleaded, not daring to allow herself to read too much into his words.
He caught her chin in his hand and smiled ruefully down into her upturned features. ‘What, and treat you like someone who can’t take it on the chin? I wouldn’t dare!’ His expression grew sober. ‘Seriously, Rowena, I don’t want to raise any false hopes, but there’s no point assuming the worst. In fact, instead of stressing, I think we should be thanking our lucky stars. It could have been a lot worse.’
Rowena gaped incredulously up at him. His tall, dynamic figure made a most unlikely Pollyanna. ‘How, exactly?’
The curtains rings rattled as he reached over her shoulder and pulled them apart.
Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her bodily around one hundred and eighty degrees. ‘We could be out there,’ he said, nodding pointedly at the frosty wilderness outside. Rowena shuddered and leant back and retreated into the warm solidity of his chest. ‘So I suggest we make the best of the situation. It’s not perfect, but—’
‘You don’t say!’ Despite everything, his painfully upbeat attitude was amusing.
‘For one thing the décor up here is a bit too…’ head on one side, she watched him consider the ornate furnishings and bold colour scheme in the large room ‘…gothic for my taste, but you’ll be pleased to hear that the monster stove below has hotplates and can not only boil a kettle, it also heats the water—you know what that means.’
‘I do?’
‘Baths,’ he declared with lip-smacking relish. ‘And I have nothing but admiration for the bathing facilities. You could fit an army in the tub—go take a look,’ he advised, steering her in the right direction. ‘On second thoughts, try the tea first—brewed with my own fair hands. There was only dried milk, but it’s drinkable.’
Now that he mentioned it, tea did sound rather good. She touched the tip of her tongue to her dry lips and approached the tea-tray perched a bit precariously on the side of the bed. As she sat down she was careful not to dislodge it.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, watching with amusement as she sipped the hot drink, an expression of blissful concentration on her face. ‘Because there’s not a bad selection of dried goods on offer and, as the deep freeze is beginning to defrost without power, I think we’re almost morally obliged to eat some of the stuff before it wastes.’
Rowena had some problems with his logic, but she was hungry and she admitted as much.
‘And then there’s the clothes problem…not that I have any problem with your present outfit.’
His slow, sensual smile made her heart race painfully. ‘I did notice that you’ve solved your own clothes problem,’ she retorted, her own glance moving hurriedly from his thigh area where her errant gaze showed a marked tendency to linger.
Quinn pushed the ribbed cuffs of the sweater he wore up over the tanned skin of his forearms. ‘Not too bad, is it? he mused complacently.
Rowena tore her flustered gaze from the hair-roughened skin he’d revealed. ‘And they call women the vain ones!’ she retorted hoarsely.
With a grin Quinn strutted towards her and struck a dramatic pose in front of one of the large ornate mirrors that filled the room. They were so numerous that it meant it was hard to stand anywhere in the room and not see yourself. Personally Rowena found it disturbing to repeatedly catch glimpses of someone who looked like her, but was in some obscure way different—something about the eyes…?
‘When I think that I blew my one big chance at a modelling career…’ he bemoaned, throwing her a look of mock dejection.
“‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest…?”’ Her teasing grin faded as it dawned on her that the answer to that question for her at least would always be Quinn. ‘You didn’t say—did you see anything I could wear?’
‘No, this is definitely a male domain, nothing in the cupboards screams female—well, that’s not strictly true,’ he conceded. ‘I did find several odd items, all assorted sizes, if you get my drift…’
Rowena looked puzzled. ‘I don’t.’
Quinn’s expression of frank disbelief faded to amusement as it dawned on him she was actually being serious—for a woman who had written some very cynical articles in her time about male infidelity, Rowena had a charmingly innocent streak.
‘Put it this way, I don’t think our absentee host is heavily into monogamy.’
Perhaps this blushing thing was physiological—something to do with her pregnancy. She hoped it was only a temporary aberration because it definitely wasn’t in keeping with her hard-nosed image at all.
‘In fact, a man after your own heart,’ she commented lightly.
The smile in Quinn’s eyes sparkled some more in a frighteningly charismatic way. ‘Now that I come to think about it, there was this very nice basque in a thirty-six D…I don’t suppose you could find some use for it…?’ he wondered innocently.
Rowena’s teeth came together in a ferocious fake smile. ‘The only use I’d have for a D cup is to hold my laundry!’ she declared with a wistful peek down at her chest.
Quinn threw back his head and his big booming laughter rang out. It was as warm and uninhibited as the man himself, she found herself thinking as he wiped tears of mirth from his face.
‘It’s extremely insensitive—not to mention callous—to treat a woman’s physical shortcomings as a joke,’ she informed him tartly.
The attractive laughter lines around his eyes smoothed out as their glances collided. ‘You don’t have any physical shortcomings,’ he announced abruptly. His eyes continued to devour her hungrily for several paralysing seconds before he got to his feet. ‘You have a good rummage for something to wear and I’ll sort out some food.’
Rowena, who found she had been holding her breath during that prolonged eye contact, released a long, shuddering sigh when she was left alone.
Maybe, she pondered as she carefully sorted through the drawers of neatly folded clothes, it was a mistake to act as if the air didn’t crackle with electricity when they were in a room together. It wasn’t unreasonable to suppose that he’d want to do something about that sizzle once their more urgent needs like shelter and food were dealt with. Quinn’s old hunter-gatherer instinct had obviously kicked in strongly—especially after she’d all but ravished him earlier! You couldn’t just blow hot and cold on the man without offering some sort of explanation, no matter how lame.
Perhaps she should tackle the problem head on and tell him—Sleeping together means nothing, Quinn, she could say. Sex is no basis for a long-term relationship, and even if I were into long-term relationships…which I’m not…I can’t risk falling in love. It’s a genetic thing; all the women in my family go a little strange when they fall in love.
No, if she told him that he’d just think she was crazy.
After due consideration what she actually said when she emerged downstairs was, ‘That smells nice.’
She noticed her favourite Gucci boots, barely recognisable in the their scuffed, battered condition, sitting forlornly beside the hot stove. She accepted their demise more philosophically than she would have a few hours earlier, when things like what she was wearing had still seemed important.
Perhaps near-death experiences did that to a person…?
Not that she could claim to be totally unconcerned about her appearance. Quinn, with his unstudied elegance, was the sort of man who made women conscious of their appearance. As she recalled the advice of a lady who had once been a top model Rowena’s head went up and her shoulders back as she crossed the room towards him. ‘It’s not what you wear, darling,’ she’d told Rowena, ‘it’s the way you wear it. If you carry yourself well you can look stylish in a sack.’ Well, what she was wearing now had to be one up from a sack!
‘Mushroom risotto, made with some dried shitake and chanterelles. Pass that saffron, would you…?’ Quinn requested without removing his gaze from the large open pan he was stirring.
Rowena who had spent a long time fussing stupidly over her appearance—which, when your dress was a man’s baggy jumper and your footwear was wrinkled woolly socks, was pretty sad—experienced a totally irrational feeling of pique as she did as he requested.
‘This is definitely what I’d term back to basics,’ she observed, getting a closer look on the large pan perched on the cast-iron hotplate atop the room heater. Her forearm accidentally nudged his as she handed him the spice.
‘Sorry.’
Quinn turned his hand over, but instead of closing his long fingers around the spice pot he looked back and forth from the sleeve of his jumper to the almost identical sleeves of the one she wore. A slow grin spread across his ruggedly handsome face; the comparison seemed to amuse him. He lightly touched the fine-boned delicacy of her blue-veined wrist, feeling the echo of a strong pulse as his finger skated along the bony projection beneath her thumb. Again the contrast fascinated him, but not in a way this time that brought a smile to his lips.
His eyes lifted and skimmed her face, taking in the big, dilated pupils and the half-scared, half-defiant expression on her delicately flushed English-rose face. Rowena was perfectly still, her eyes focused on his mouth, and each breath she took was an effort.
Abruptly he dropped her wrist and, taking the spice pot from her lax grip, turned back to the cooking pot, leaving her to wonder whether what had happened had been a figment of her imagination.
‘We could buy matching anoraks too.’
Suffering from the effects of severe anticlimax, Rowena lowered her eyes and tried to distance herself from the ache deep inside. ‘If I was ever seen in an anorak my career would be in tatters.’
‘You used to say that about having a baby,’ he reminded her, sprinkling some of the fragrant golden saffron threads into the cooking mixture.
Rowena watched the saffron melt into the creamy dish, her whole body rigid with tension. ‘So I did.’
Quinn tasted a spoonful of creamy rice mixture and gave a satisfied grunt. ‘Don’t look so worried. Given your well-known views on the subject of executives with babies, I expect there’ll be a few sly nudges at first, but we can weather it,’ he announced confidently, placing the cooking pot on the table. ‘Could you pass down a couple of plates…?’ He nodded towards the shelf behind her.
His benevolent line in advice set Rowena’s teeth on edge. Mouth set in a hard line, she reached up and did as he requested, blissfully unaware that the sweater she wore as a dress rode indecently high over her smooth hips as she did so. But Quinn noticed.
She brought the plates crashing down on the wooden surface beside the steaming pot. She glared at him and he looked back, looking distinctly shifty.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked warily.
Rowena folded her arms across her chest. ‘Where do I start?’ The streaks of heat across his cheekbones, no doubt as a result of his time spent huddled over the hot stove, seemed to be fading. ‘Firstly, there is no we.’
Quinn smiled thinly as he surveyed her flushed, antagonistic face. ‘It’s good to see a bit of colour back in your cheeks. And second? I take it there is a second…?’ he speculated drily.
‘Second,’ she bit back obligingly, ‘I haven’t changed my mind about anything at all. I still think that you can’t be a good wife and mother and have enough left for your career.’
Quinn’s expression hardened, and eyes as merciless as the sea swept her face. ‘Then you didn’t mean it when you said that you were keeping…?’
‘I did mean it,’ she retorted impatiently. ‘I am going to keep the baby.’ She saw a wave of palpable relief pass over his tense features and tried not to soften her resolve.
There were big changes ahead for her and she was scared. She couldn’t admit this to Quinn, but she could make him appreciate that insulting her intelligence by acting as if there would be no problem was not on!
His eyes narrowed cynically. ‘Do I hear a but coming on…?’
‘But I’m trying to be realistic. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do my job as well as I’d like to now.’
‘You could always move into the office, or maybe not sleep at all.’
‘I can do without the constant stream of facetious interruptions!’
‘Consider my lips sealed,’ he returned with mock humility.
Rowena thought it best not to consider his lips at all but, despite her caution, her stomach muscles tightened. ‘If there aren’t enough hours in the day now…when a demanding baby comes along…’ She gave an eloquent shrug.
‘You want a pat on the back for your noble sacrifice—fine, but while you’re being realistic, Rowena, it might be a good idea to remember that babies don’t just demand, they give too…’
Rowena stiffened at the reprimand in his voice. Resentment swelled in her tight chest. Sure, Quinn could afford to sneer at realism while she was doing the worrying for both of them.
All he’d have to do was buy a new wallet to accommodate a few snapshots of his new baby and make the odd weekend free for a walk in the park. The fact that she’d have treated any suggestion that he might be anything more than a token presence in the baby’s life with extreme hostility didn’t affect her seething resentment.
‘I’m aware of that.’ She sniffed coldly. ‘Deciding to keep the baby wasn’t a sentimental decision…’ Sentimentality implied something superficial, and something far deeper and more profound, something she still didn’t understand herself, had motivated Rowena when she’d decided she wanted to keep this baby.
‘No, I can see that sentimentality would not be in keeping with your image.’
Her fingernails inscribed deep half-moons in the soft flesh of her palms as her hands balled into tight fists. He seemed determined to misinterpret everything she said.
‘I don’t have an image!’
Her teeth grated as one dark, eloquent brow lifted in silent scepticism.
‘What, not even the ice-maiden?’ he wondered, affecting surprise. His expression hardened. ‘Come off it, Rowena! People think you recharge your batteries at night, not sleep, and you play up to the role for all it’s worth. I’m not saying there’s a problem with that if it works for you; the problem arises when you carry on playing the role at home. Home, the place where you chill out, have a few beers with friends—cast your memory back, Rowena, you’re sure to remember what it’s like.’ His lip curled as his scornful gaze travelled over her body. ‘Or maybe not?’
He silently despaired at the fact that even in the midst of the heated row the promise of slim curves beneath the shapeless covering had an instant effect on his libido. He could almost feel the soft peach down of her skin. He shifted his stance uncomfortably—it was a strong effect, and not the sort that was easy to hide. It was the sort of effect that told Rowena it didn’t matter if she acted like a total bitch—Quinn Tyler was still a complete pushover when it came to her!
He needn’t have worried because Rowena’s eyes didn’t leave his contemptuous face.
For the sort of lifestyle Quinn described, you needed friends, Rowena thought dully. Over the years her circle had not expanded, but got smaller.
At least she now knew what Quinn really thought about her. Given his strongly expressed views it seemed pretty obvious that it wasn’t pleasure in her company that made him seek her out—that left her body and sex.
It wasn’t the first time a man had wanted her for her body—it was the first time the knowledge had hurt and depressed her this much!
Well, it was good that was sorted, she told herself bracingly. At least she wouldn’t embarrass them both by reading anything deep and meaningful into his pursuit.
‘I suppose that makes me the person you’d least like to be stuck in a blizzard with. Bad luck, Quinn, but I suppose those are the breaks…’
She exhaled through her quivering nostrils. It didn’t seem likely that Quinn would believe what she was about to say, but she knew it was important for her to try—for some reason, Quinn’s opinion mattered to her.
‘Don’t laugh.’ This didn’t look likely. ‘But if you must know, I’m keeping the baby because I’ve discovered I’m as genetically programmed to protect this new life as the next woman…’ A knot of emotion ached in her throat as she met his eyes—he was still displaying no inclination to laugh, but she thought she did see something close to shock move at the back of his eyes. ‘It came as just as much of a shock to me.’ Her quick, self-derisive smile held no humour.
It had been more than a simple shock; for someone who had been fighting against genetic programming most of her life, this was an incredibly hard admission to make to herself, let alone a second party—especially a second party who was personally involved.
‘I’m not shocked, Rowena,’ he replied, his voice surprisingly gentle. ‘I’m sure you’ll make a great mother.’
‘I’m glad one of us is.’ His gentleness was nearly her undoing. She felt the tears sting her eyelids as she blinked rapidly, her eyes focusing on the steaming plate of food he slid in front of her.
‘I’ve never had a broody moment in my life.’ A baby deserves a better mother than me, she decided as a fresh batch of doubts assailed her.
‘You’ve never been pregnant before either. At least I’m assuming…?’
Rowena was amazed to see her fingers curled against the darker skin of his wrist. Her sensitive stomach flipped over before she self-consciously released him and picked up a fork.
‘No, I’ve never been pregnant before,’ she enunciated in a clear, icy voice. ‘Have you?’ She was already deeply regretting going public with her interlude of self-doubt.
Quinn was undoubtedly ruthless and sneaky enough to turn any weakness she displayed to his own advantage. The problem was, she didn’t yet know what he did want.
Quinn grinned and began to rub his wrists. ‘No, I’ve no experience to speak of, but I expect we’ll muddle through somehow…’
That we word again! And she didn’t know how anyone could look cheerful at the prospect of muddling through! Muddling through filled her with deep horror. Right now her head was filled with so much muddle, half the time she didn’t know her own name. Why, she was so muddled that, until he’d revealed exactly what he thought about her, she’d even questioned if it were possible Quinn hadn’t fallen in love with her—you couldn’t get more muddled than that!
‘Is there something wrong with your short-term memory, Quinn? I’ve already told you there is no we! There is not going to be any cosy scene of domestic bliss. I may be pregnant but some things haven’t changed. I don’t require a husband.’
‘I don’t recall asking you to marry me.’
Rowena experienced an unexpected and totally perverse pang of abandonment. ‘Good, that saves me the embarrassment of refusing you. This is very good,’ she added brightly as she placed a forkful of risotto into her mouth.
‘And as always your concern for my feelings is uppermost.’
This time there was no mistaking his sarcasm. Rowena chewed nervously on her full lower lip.
‘I’m sorry if I hurt you, Quinn.’ If he hadn’t been so stubborn they could have had a nice time with no complications—at least, they could have if she hadn’t got pregnant. ‘But I told you my terms in New York—’
‘Terms!’ he exploded, his face darkening with anger. ‘Good God, woman this isn’t a business negotiation we’re discussing, it’s a love affair.’
‘I would never have a love affair with someone who yells at me!’ She shied away as he put out a hand towards her. A frustrated sound escaped from between Quinn’s bared teeth as his hand came down with a bang on the table surface.
‘I think I’ve some excuse for yelling. Why didn’t you tell me about the baby, Rowena?’
Rowena looked into his dark, impossibly attractive face and accepted what she’d been fighting against: she was in love with Quinn Tyler, and no matter how many telephone numbers she changed or how many miles she put between them, nothing was going to change that!
The world spun and Rowena thought she might faint. She had put her faith in the theory that if a person took sensible precautions she could avoid falling in love. Discovering that her theory was seriously flawed left Rowena with no place to hide.
Rowena hadn’t had to look very far to see how love could dramatically change women. Loving Grandpa had made Gran abandon a glittering career without a second thought, and it hadn’t stopped there—oh, no! After she’d married Dad her mother had rejected the exciting uncertainty of life as a budding young actress in favour of the security of life as a drama teacher, trying to teach a bunch of unappreciative kids who’d have preferred to be watching cartoons to the delights of Shakespeare. Now all she had was a scrapbook collection of yellowing newspaper reviews which Rowena had once found her weeping over. And now sensible Holly was jumping headlong into marriage with Niall, despite his dismal track record and the fact they had nothing whatever in common and at a point when distractions could be fatal to her fantastic career prospects!
At least they had all had the comfort of knowing the men they loved were equally as soft in the head when it came to them. I’ve gone one better, I’ve fallen in love with a man who has never used the ‘L’ word, not even once! Rowena thought frantically.
‘Slow down, Rowena, you’re hyperventilating…Rowena!’ Quinn repeated sharply.
He touched her shoulder and she pulled back, her eyes wide and hostile. ‘I’m fine…’ Slowly her breathing slowed and the red dots dancing before her eyes retreated. ‘I wasn’t ready to tell you. I didn’t even know at that stage what my plans were.’
‘And now you do?’
‘I’ll hand in my notice, of course.’ She was winging it and trying simultaneously to give the impression she’d given the whole thing a lot of intelligent thought—she could hardly say she was having trouble thinking a minute ahead. ‘Freelance writing is an option, I do have excellent contacts.’
‘Hand in your notice! Are you insane?’
This scathing judgement seemed bang on to Rowena, who was wondering what she thought she was doing, blurting out the first rash thing that had come into her head. Only stubborn pride stopped her admitting she’d just been sounding off, that she actually didn’t know what she was going to do.
A look of tired comprehension spread across Quinn’s strained face as their eyes met. ‘Oh, I get it, this is a matter of principle, I suppose…’ He was finding it increasingly difficult to abide by his earlier resolve not to get too confrontational or heavy while Rowena was very obviously still pretty traumatised by their snowy adventure.
Rowena was perturbed to discover Quinn didn’t appear too impressed by her sacrifice—actually he looked blazing mad.
‘Principle and practicality, but, yes, it would be hypocritical to do anything else.’
Why didn’t she just say, You’ve ruined my life, Quinn, and have done with it? He thought. ‘And you’re never hypocritical, I suppose. My God!’ he exclaimed bitterly, raking a hand roughly through his dark hair. There was a limit to how much rubbish a man could listen to! ‘Do you know, at times you can be the most stiff-necked and pompous woman I’ve ever met! You’re totally obsessed with image. Do you ever consider anyone else but yourself and what you want?’
Rowena flinched at the ferocity of this unexpected tirade. Somewhere an image of Gran appeared, her robust frame frail, the intelligent light in her eyes dimmed…‘That’s not true!’ she gasped weakly.
Quinn’s lips twisted in a sardonic smile that left his marvellous eyes cold and hostile. Rowena found it hard to recognise this Quinn in the laconic, laid-back individual she knew.
‘Really? I must have missed you asking me how I feel about becoming a father.’ He saw the flare of startled dismay in her eyes and refused to let it soften his resolve. He’d respected her hormones, repressed his baser instincts until she’d asked him not to, and given the best interpretation he knew how of an enlightened, modern man who respected a woman’s wishes, but there came a point when enough was enough and he’d passed it! ‘Have you even thought about it?’
Rowena felt her face colour guiltily. ‘I’ve already told you…’ she faltered uncertainly ‘…I thought I ought to sort out how I felt first.’
‘I thought you had it all sorted, down to the big grand gesture of quitting your job,’ he mocked. ‘And don’t try telling me that’s got anything to do with not being able to combine motherhood and a career.’ He shook his head. ‘Sure, you’d take a bit of stick, but with a bit of humour you’d weather it. Oh, sorry,’ he drawled, ‘I was forgetting you never learnt how to laugh at yourself. Hell, talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous! You’ll pack in the job you’ve always wanted just because—’
His reaction struck her as the height of perversity. Since when had Quinn rated what she did? ‘Who said I always wanted it?’ she snarled back.
‘You did, and even if you hadn’t I think I’d have guessed, seeing as how you went for it like a heat-seeking missile, and displayed just about as much consideration for anything and anybody that got in your way.’
So not only did he think she was a work-obsessed automaton, he thought she was a ruthless operator who wouldn’t know an ethic if it poked her in the nose!
Rowena turned away and didn’t see the expression of consternation that flickered across his face. When she turned back her chin was up and her eyes were glistening defiantly.
‘I’m sorry if my methods offend your fine sensibilities.’
Quinn grimaced and wondered if he was going to stop saying the wrong thing any time soon. ‘Rowena…’
Shaking her head, she stepped back before his fingers could grip her shoulder. ‘I suppose,’ she mused with a small, bitter smile, ‘that I should be grateful you didn’t accuse me of sleeping my way to the top!’ With a sharp, angry twist of her head she sent a heavy strand of hair that lay across her cheek whipping backwards.
‘Hardly—you’ve not allowed any precious time in your schedule for anything as frivolous as a love life.’
Rowena didn’t bother denying this disdainful observation—partly because there was a lot of truth in it. ‘I suppose you’d think better of me if I’d slept with anything with a pulse, like you! Oh, no,’ she sneered, not allowing him an opportunity to respond. ‘Then I’d have been a tart.’ Her eyes blazed as she dwelt on the unfairness of it. ‘And don’t give me any of your “this is the twenty-first century” enlightened stuff; men like you, no matter what they say, always have double standards.’
Quinn stood there watching her bosom heave in agitation. ‘How many lovers have you actually had?’
The outrageous question coming totally out of the blue disconcerted Rowena almost as much as the gleam in his half-closed eyes.
‘I…what…? None of your business!’ Outrage brought a rush of fresh colour to her pale cheeks and stiffened her spine to ramrod rigidity.
Quinn was unrepentant. ‘Five, twenty…’ One dark brow lifted. ‘More…less?’
‘Why do you want to know? Other than nasty, prurient curiosity, that is,’ she said, her lips quivering in distaste.
‘Well, you weren’t on the pill…and you weren’t carrying any condoms…’ Not the normal behaviour of a sexually active woman, in his experience.
‘Which hardly makes me a virgin.’ Just a reckless fool with no self-control where Quinn Tyler was concerned.
‘No, just not the person best qualified to write some of the articles you have been responsible for.’
‘Which you’ve read, I suppose?’ she drawled sarcastically.
‘I’ve seen enough to recognise a common theme.’
‘Prove it,’ she challenged, calling his bluff. She was pretty sure he had never read a word she’d written.
‘Let me see…’ Rowena’s smug smile broadened as he appeared to flounder. “‘Men have been doing it for years, now it’s our turn”…?’ She was no longer smiling. “‘Cheat, but don’t get caught.” Would you say that’s a fair selection of your more grabbable titles?’
‘You’re taking it totally out of context!’ she accused hotly. ‘I never advocated casual sex. In fact, I’ve frequently pointed out that many woman feel pressurised by the media to act like some sort of sex addicts when a great many of us would actually prefer a good book and a box of chocolates,’ she explained, with a pitying sniff of feminine disdain.
‘That surely would depend on what sort of lover they had.’ A dangerous grin slashed his lean features as his lashes lifted to reveal an equally menacing glitter in his eyes.
The prickle under Rowena’s skin—a constant companion when Quinn was around—became a raw pain as she was hit by a wave of sexual longing so strong that for several moments her vocal cords were literally paralysed.
‘And I suppose if it was Quinn Tyler she’d not want to get out of bed all weekend…?’ she finally managed to retort huskily. The second the words were out of her mouth the images started playing in her head of the varied methods Quinn could and in all probability had used to keep his partners too exhausted to get out of bed.
‘I hate to sound conceited, but that’s not a situation without precedent.’ He smiled wolfishly.
Before she’d been on the receiving end of that smile Rowena had fondly imagined ‘weak-kneed’ was just a figure of speech—now she knew differently.
She took a deep gulp and plunged on defiantly, trying to focus on anything but his eyes. ‘And recently I’ve been researching an interesting article on celibate marriages…’
‘Celibate marriages?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘Whatever will they think of next?’ he hooted.
Rowena listened to his predictable male reaction with a pitying smile. ‘There’s nothing new about celibate marriages. Actually there are a lot of people out there who lead a perfectly fulfilling life without sex—out of choice—and before you start I have to tell you I’ve heard every crass joke about Viagra there is. Why assume a sexless marriage is a loveless marriage? I expect reactions like yours are why people aren’t inclined to go public about it. Not that I’d expect you to appreciate the relief some people experience when you take all the—’
‘Passion and excitement?’
His flip interruption earned him a stern frown—the sort that made cocky assistant editors feel insecure. Unfortunately it didn’t have a similar dampening effect on Quinn.
‘Passion and excitement rarely make it past the first year…’
‘That’s longer than your boyfriends, so I hear tell,’ he responded promptly.
Rowena kept a hold on her temper with difficulty. ‘Platonic love has more staying power,’ she gritted. ‘And some people prefer the less volatile emotions like companionship and affection. Mutual respect,’ she added, dogged determination creeping into her tone as she refused to be influenced by his amused scepticism.
She might even appreciate the irony one day in singing the praises of celibacy when her brain was filled to the brim with steamy sexy images—but not in the foreseeable future, she decided as a ribbon of cold sweat slid down her spine!
‘Is there some reason you can’t have mutual respect and passion?’
‘Men,’ she retorted, ‘are notoriously incapable of juggling more than one task. I think the same goes for emotions. They respect their mothers, they love their children and they lust after their nubile secretaries,’ announced the woman who despised generalisations. The same woman who had an article on her laptop detailing the unfair press men received in the media these days. She wondered what Quinn would make of, ‘Has the balance swung too far in the other direction?’ She’d regretfully decided, ‘Are we castrating our men?’ might be a bit too strong for the magazine’s target audience.
‘My secretary is called Vincent and at a guess I’d say the idea of me being consumed by lust would alarm him deeply…’
‘You know what I mean,’ she snapped crossly.
He nodded. ‘Sure, men are shallow, sex-crazed monsters about covers it, I think. Well, as fascinating as the subject of other people’s sex lives—or, in this case, lack of them—is, we’re rather slipping from the point here.’
Just as well he’d remembered his point, because all she could concentrate on now was the flickering images in her head and what upped the agony factor was the fact that Quinn’s eager victim was no longer anonymous. She saw that same face every time she looked in the mirror.
‘You’re usually such a cautious person.’ His puzzled eyes moved over her face, noting several signs of strain there, including pinpricks of moisture beading her upper lip which he immediately fantasised about blotting with his own tongue before he—Don’t go there, Quinn, he instructed himself urgently. Too late!
‘I’m sure you’ve never left your car door unlocked in your life, and I’d have sworn that you’ve never left home without a tissue or other female essentials…’
And obviously the women Quinn knew thought of condoms as essentials. Come to think of it, a rival magazine that had done a piece on the average *******s of the handbag of a woman between the ages of twenty-five and thirty had thought so too, so possibly it was she who was wildly out of step with the times.
‘Is that meant to be a crude analogy? Because if so—’
‘Hold up,’ he protested, holding up a hand to defend his innocence. ‘No analogy, crude or otherwise, no double or single entendre, even. I was just making an observation that you’re a very careful person—and before you jump down my throat again I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just pointing out it was a bit out of character.’
‘It was a bit out of character for me to sleep with you…’
‘It was, but now I’m happy to say it’s becoming a regular occurrence.’
Rowena closed her eyes—she’d walked right into that one! She tried not to let her thoughts get sidetracked. It was not easy, but she needed all her wits about her if she wasn’t going to reveal something that would only make it harder to say no when Quinn made his next move. It didn’t seem overly conceited to think he would at some point—if he hadn’t throttled her in the meantime. It was hard to remember, with all this aggression floating around, that they’d once had such an easy rapport.
A nasty thought occurred to her. ‘I hope you’re not trying to imply it’s my fault I’m pregnant?’ she began. ‘Is that where this is leading? Because if you are—’
‘It’s no more your fault than it is mine.’
Which, Rowena recognised immediately, wasn’t the same thing as saying either of them was innocent.
‘The only blameless person here is the baby.’ His long-lashed eyes dropped to Rowena’s flat belly. ‘I don’t think there’s much to be gained from apportioning blame…God!’ He groaned, immediately contradicting himself. ‘It’s no excuse, I know, but I’ve never had a condom tear on me before…’
The colour faded from her cheeks. ‘A condom tore? So that’s how…I did wonder, because you were so careful…’ Well, that was one mystery solved, but it opened up another. ‘And you knew? Why didn’t you say something?’
‘I did, you said it didn’t matter. Actually,’ he recalled, a contemplative gleam in his eyes, ‘you said nothing mattered except—’
‘Yes, well, there’s no point in post-mortem,’ Rowena cut in brightly—reminders of what she’d said she could do without.
Actually Quinn had turned out to be very responsive to requests and even orders in her more urgent moments. It had never occurred to Rowena before that you could actually lead a man where you wanted him to go, and Quinn had displayed an amazing talent for interpreting her most inarticulate pleas.
‘I suppose you realise it’s the height of bad manners to quiz a woman on her sexual history,’ she added darkly. ‘If you must know, I’ve had enough lovers.’
‘And were any of these numerous relationships long-lived?’
‘I didn’t say there were lots, just enough and I’ve never had any interest in long-term relationships…’ she countered evasively.
‘How could I have forgotten?’ he drawled at his driest. ‘I hate to ruin all your plans to be a struggling single parent who’s nobly sacrificed her career for her baby…’ Rowena got the distinct impression he wasn’t sold on nobility ‘…but,’ he continued, his voice grim, his expression uncompromising, ‘this baby has two parents, and most people would expect a man in my position to give financial support. In fact,’ he added, ‘some people might expect me to do more…more as in marry you,’ he added when her blank expression of wary incomprehension didn’t lift.
Very aware of his keen eyes on her face, Rowena kept her expression very still. ‘Well, luckily for you I’m not one of them.’ She even managed a passable laugh.
‘I’ll take that as a no, shall I…?’
Rowena frowned. He didn’t sound like a man who’d just had a lucky escape.
‘Well, if you don’t want to marry me, perhaps it would be better all round if I took responsibility for the baby after the birth. Personally I don’t think it can be good for a kid’s emotional development to have a mother who never stops reminding him or her of how great a career she could have had if she hadn’t sacrificed her all on the altar of maternal love. No,’ he mused, his eyes as hard as flint as they surveyed her face. ‘The more I think about it, the more sensible it seems. That way your meteoric rise need not be disrupted…If you carry on the way you are, in another couple of years you’ll never write another word—but, my, you’ll be powerful and that’s what counts, isn’t it?’
Leaving her sitting there with her mouth open, her face white with stunned disbelief, Quinn casually picked up his plate and left the table.
26-11-07, 10:17 AM
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